The well is on city property and the city actually controls the water rights and the water system on the airport, said Pratt City Manager Dave Howard.

"The city owns the water rights so it is a city issues," Howard said.

Bell conferred with Howard about the matter and Howard said the city was going to shut down the well and cap it in the appropriate manner.

The airport has two water wells and both have been contaminated with nitrates for years. One of the two wells is also contaminated with carbon tetrachloride and that is the well that is going to be shut down, Howard said.

The well with the carbon tetrachloride contamination has not been used for seven or eight years so it will not affect current operations at the airport, Howard said.

The city considered using the well with carbon tetrachloride to provide water for the fire suppression system at the airbase but that would contaminate the rest of the system so it was discarded as an option.

However, the water usage in the other well at the airport is about to reach its acre-foot usage limit so if another high water usage business were to locate at the airport, it would stretch the remaining well to its limit

The city considered moving the shut down well but it might have the same issues so it doesn't make sense to move the well, Howard said.

With space available for more businesses at the airport, the best option for the city would be to connect the airport to the city water supply.

The city water system reaches north of town on U.S. 281 to 20th Street at Kincheloe's.

If the city decided to extend the current system it would take about two miles of pipe to get on the airport plus more pluming on the airport to connect it with the businesses.

However, exactly when the water line would be installed is unknown. The city has a lot of other projects going on right now so that project would have to wait, Howard said.

If city water were extended to the airport it would require a pumping unit to keep the chlorine levels up because the businesses at the airport don't use enough water to circulate the chlorine.

Exactly when the well will be shut down has not been decided.

While the airport is going to lose a water well it will try again to get bids on a new snowplow and building to hose the plow.

An earlier bid letting for the building and plow resulted in no bids for the plow and just two bids for the building, Bell said.

The two building bids came in extremely high and far exceeded the engineer's estimate so both bids were rejected.

The Airport Improvement grant the airport would use to make the purchases had a lot of specs and many businesses didn't want to mess with it.

The new bids will go out around Jan. 1, 2013 and bids will be opened on March 1, 2013.